Dark War Glaive Review

[Kagetsume]

My first saber purchase from UltraSabers was a fully kitted out Dark War Glaive, diamond controller, etc.  I absolutely love it, I've been tinkering and customizing the sound/light fx ever since, getting it set up just the way I want.  The diamond controller is awesome; very configurable and the software is easy to use, it only looks daunting at first.  I liked it so much I ordered a $200 mystery saber and three $75 mystery sabers to see what I get!  There's nothing I'd be unhappy with, but of course I hope for something really cool.

Sabers have come a long way since I built my first one back in college over 20 years ago.  My very first one was lit via a single-end neon tube connected to a miniature tesla coil (more or less).  It was bright and could extend and retract in the tube, but you could not duel with it, nor could I fit sound with the battery tech that existed at the time.  So, I had a fragile, but neat prop with a removable light-able blade.  I still have it, it still works perfectly, and it's still dear to me since I built it completely (down to fabbing the entire grip from what I could scrounge and a dremel).   But ... the UltraSaber War Glaive is right up there, it has sound, AND I can duel with it!  I cannot really ask for anything more.

[tx_tuff]

Thanks for the review, glad you are enjoying it so much. Would love to see some pictures of it won't with the one you made 20 years ago!

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

[Kagetsume]

Comparison is below.

The top one is the gorgeous Dark War Glaive with silver claws.  I've tweaked to to ever so slightly flicker when on to mimic the original trilogy blade flicker, as well as modified some of the motion sensitives as well as swapped out the spin sound with the one from the ancient saber sound fount (I like it better than the default obsidian one)

The lower saber is my 20  year old hand-built electrical plasma-nightmare:



Most of my old one is battery.  It requires 8 AA (12V) to power the HF generator that lit the tube.  I would have loved to have had the LI 3.7V batteries back then.  I looked into doing it with 18V (2 9V batteries in series) but they couldn't support the mAh to run it for very long.  I could have powered it with 3-4 of the ones the ultrasabers run on now, and made it smaller or had space for sound too.

That's actually the second version.  The first one was actually a fair bit smaller, but I had a lot of issues with it and came up with a new housing and shielding layout to deal with them.  The first prototype tended to shock the user when it was running and would reek of ozone because it was ionizing the air near the contact points in the hilt in the blade socket, and sometimes arc out to the casing itself  The second prototype (the one pictured above) fixed all those issues, no more shock or ozone.   It was still an EMF nightmare, though.  It made capacitive touch-lamps in its vicinity go crazy; as it was waved around the lamps would randomly turn on and off and rotate 3 way bulbs through their various levels.  It could also light up any nearby florescent bulbs if it was brought within eight inches of them.

The UltraSabers one is so much more friendly and safer than my old one.  Nevermind brighter, and has sound!  But, there's still the bit of pride in knowing I built a saber (an actual plasma-generating saber) completely from scratch with just a dremel, a soldering iron, a drill, and a cheap pipe cutter (and some misc electronic bits bought from various places).

[Lady Agana Kath]

Thanks for the review, DWG is a fantastic hilt 

Your homemade saber is amazing, I would love to see video of it igniting and running.

[Rapine]

Wow Kagetsume! You ought to have chosen Tesla as a handle...lol

Great job!  Yes, UltraSabers are much better in that aspect.

-1

[tx_tuff]

Thanks for the pictures. Your home made saber is so freaking cool!! Love the stories about it as well.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

[Therion Jinn]

The lower saber is my 20  year old hand-built electrical plasma-nightmare:

Thanks for sharing both the review, and the pics.
That old hilt looks like it could possibly hold some newer electronics if you became so inclined

[Kagetsume]

I know it could, there's more space in mine than in the ultrasaber.  But, if I was going to do that I'd replace the 8AA 12v setup with a 3 Lio 3.7 in series to rescue space and perhaps rig in sound.   Or, I could just build a new hollow hilt following that original design and use the newer LED style lighting.  That hilt is not difficult to build, and now that I can buy a control switch point instead of having to hand-fabricate out of sheet aluminum, it wouldn't be that hard.

[Blacktooth25]

Very cool saber and nice pics!

[Kagetsume]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwqu-5G3D4c" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwqu-5G3D4c</a>

Thought I would share a video of of my 20 year old proto saber extending and retracting its beam of ionized plasma.   The flickers at the beginning and end are due to an inductive issue I never bothered to sort out causing one final burp of energy.

If I can find a touch-sensitive lamp, I'll do a video showing it driving touch lamps crazy.   It also drives the old ForceFX sabers crazy too, making the circuit go into audible spasms if it comes into contact it it.   

[Daniel1988]

Comparison is below.

The top one is the gorgeous Dark War Glaive with silver claws.  I've tweaked to to ever so slightly flicker when on to mimic the original trilogy blade flicker, as well as modified some of the motion sensitives as well as swapped out the spin sound with the one from the ancient saber sound fount (I like it better than the default obsidian one)

The lower saber is my 20  year old hand-built electrical plasma-nightmare:



Most of my old one is battery.  It requires 8 AA (12V) to power the HF generator that lit the tube.  I would have loved to have had the LI 3.7V batteries back then.  I looked into doing it with 18V (2 9V batteries in series) but they couldn't support the mAh to run it for very long.  I could have powered it with 3-4 of the ones the ultrasabers run on now, and made it smaller or had space for sound too.

That's actually the second version.  The first one was actually a fair bit smaller, but I had a lot of issues with it and came up with a new housing and shielding layout to deal with them.  The first prototype tended to shock the user when it was running and would reek of ozone because it was ionizing the air near the contact points in the hilt in the blade socket, and sometimes arc out to the casing itself  The second prototype (the one pictured above) fixed all those issues, no more shock or ozone.   It was still an EMF nightmare, though.  It made capacitive touch-lamps in its vicinity go crazy; as it was waved around the lamps would randomly turn on and off and rotate 3 way bulbs through their various levels.  It could also light up any nearby florescent bulbs if it was brought within eight inches of them.

The UltraSabers one is so much more friendly and safer than my old one.  Nevermind brighter, and has sound!  But, there's still the bit of pride in knowing I built a saber (an actual plasma-generating saber) completely from scratch with just a dremel, a soldering iron, a drill, and a cheap pipe cutter (and some misc electronic bits bought from various places).

Thanks for sharing and for the review. The one you built looks awesome. Looks like something that would made by a custom saber store. Both look awesome to be honest! Congrats and enjoy!